Raw Materials Sector Research Articles

Les entreprises publiques face à la crise : l’évolution du secteur de l’énergie et des matières premières

Public enterprise and the crisis : trends in the energy and raw material sectors. The international crisis has led public energy and raw material suppliers to engage in large structural transformations, viz. branching out, take-ouvers both in France and abroad, and setting up consortiums, whereas the adoption of private industry structures and management, blurring the line between both sectors, have resulted in a transfer of functions from one to the other, diminishing the specificity of public enterprise. The phenomenon is partly explained by the international crisis, calling for ideological and political reactions. A wider coherence of the public sector and a clearer definition of what belongs to overall planning and what to the autonomy of public enterprise will determine the success of the nationalizations.

Situation et perspectives des relations économiques germano-soviétiques au seuil des années 1980

Present Situation and Prospects for Development of German- Soviet Economie Relations in the 1980's. For many German firms, trade with East-European countries has become a tradition over the decades and accounted for 15% of German foreign trade volume prior to World War II. Internationally known companies such as Otto Wolff AG, the Krupp Group and Deutsche Bank AG have had close business ties with the U.S.S.R. since the early 20's. These relations have been upheld on a pragmatic footing under various political constellations right up to the present day. It can be considered a traditional feature of German trade with the East that private companies maintain contacts with their East-European business partners independently and without any special political or legal assistance from the state. While in the 50's and 60's the Federal Republic of Germany was in a position of front-line political confrontation with the U.S.S.R., the German business community regarded the promotion of trade relations as a stabilizing element in international politics. German trade with the East has always seen itself as a long-term, independent manifestation of the fundamental, international division of labour in the face of changing — at times rapidly changing — foreign policy doctrines. German companies geared their business relations with Eastern Europe solely to the calculable, private entrepreneurial profit and loss indices of the individual firms — without government intervention or promotion measures — and to this extent treated trade with the East, despite its unique features, as part of general worldwide international business. In the 70's, a number of treaties were concluded between the Federal Republic and the U.S.S.R., which dealt among other things with economic questions and affected mutual trade relations. The long-term German-Soviet agreement on economic cooperation concluded in May 1978, modeled on Finnish and French treaties, provides a legal basis for existing relations and projects future developments. Emphasis is placed above all on planned cooperation with regard to large projects — in particular in the energy and raw material sectors — as well as on intensifying and diversifying industrial cooperation, also involving small and medium- sized firms. The pragmatic aim of promoting trade relations between the Federal Republic and the U.S.S.R. is to create normal forms of international economic cooperation as a factor in an economically optimal, politically constructive, long- term international division of labour with the aim of achieving a calculable, mutual benefit.

Raw materials in the foreign trade of the LDCs

The developing countries’ championship of what they term an “integrated approach for raw materials” is one of the livellest subjects in the Federal Republic of Germany. Bonn suggests a pragmatic, as distinct from an ideological, approach — for the benefit of the Third World. For this reason it has to be analyzed, whether the raw material sector is the ideal basis for the improvement of the existing situation.

The Role of Economic Sectors in the Formation of Regional Production Complexes

A variety of approaches used in Soviet economic geography to define and measure the productive specialization of an economic region are reviewed. In the author's view, a regional activity qualifies as regional specialization if it helps shape the basic character of the regional economy. It is not sufficient for a regional activity merely to represent a major portion of a particular national sector of the economy. For example, the asbestos industry in the Urals represents the major portion of Soviet asbestos output, but asbestos does not shape the basic character of the Urals economy and is therefore not a principal specialization sector. Regional specialization derives from relationships among the various sectors of the regional economy, not from the significance of any particular commodity. A classification of economic sectors is proposed as an aid in analyzing the functioning of a regional economy: (1) the principal specialization sectors; (2) basic raw-material sectors; (3) associated sectors using the wastes and by-products of the principal sectors; (4) complementary specialization sectors, such as asbestos in the Urals; (5) auxiliary sectors, such as metallurgical fluxes for the iron and steel industry; (6) service sectors, including utilities, transportation, construction, trade; (7) local sectors, working for local consumption.